Video editing software allows users to assemble a collection of graphical objects that include video, still images, graphics, and/or animations, into a video sequence that can be rendered as a composite digital video. The video sequence stores in an editable format presentation information about how to render the graphical objects, such as render locations, visual effects applied over the graphical objects, and keyframe information, to produce the composite digital video. Video editing software, such as Adobe® Premiere® Pro and Adobe Premiere Elements, often includes a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the user to arrange the graphical objects of a video sequence into video clips in tracks on a timeline. A monitor view of the GUI assists the user in visualizing edits made to presentation information of graphical objects.
Some video editing software allows a video sequence to be used as a video clip in other video sequences. A video sequence is referred to as a nested video sequence when used in this manner and any video sequence containing it is referred to as its parent video sequence. When a parent video sequence is opened for editing in the GUI, a user may wish to edit a graphical object from one of its nested video sequences. To do so, a user opens a separate instance of the GUI that has a timeline and monitor view specific to editing and visualizing the nested video sequence. When the user has finished editing, the user returns to editing the parent video sequence. This approach is memory inefficient as it uses a separate instance of the GUI. Also, the user cannot easily determine whether edits made to a nested video sequence will achieve desired results in its parent video sequence. These problems can be compounded when the nested video sequence itself is a parent video sequence of other video sequences, and the graphical objects the user wishes to edit are from these other video sequences.